Pages

Monday, 12 January 2009

Beetroot bread.

I promised the receipe for this:

500g bread flour500g plain flour (or plain wholemeal, or any other type of plain flour - be creative!)21g of dried active yeast (not the fast acting type)1.5 pints of warm water (or the water that potatoes were boiled in - makes a lovely crumb)1tbsp of honeysaltpepper (I put a lot of pepper in my bread)Glug of Olive Oil (optional)2 medium beetroots cooked and diced finely.

Add the yeast and honey to the warm water and leave for 10 minutes or so, until a good froth has formed.

Put the flours and seasonings (not beetroot) in a bowl (or heavy duty cake mixer using a dough hook). Add the yeasty water and mix together - go easy with the water, sometimes not all the awter is needed, depends on the flour and weather. If too sticky add more flour, it won't hurt. I usually add a glug of olive oil too at this stage.

Knead for about 10 mins until the dough is smooth and elastic.Leave to prove until double in size (approximately 1 hour - although leaving longer won't harm at all)Knock back and add the beetroot, kneeding it into the bread. Then shape and leave to prove again until double in size. Pop in a hot oven until the bread sounds hallow when tapped on the bottom. (I have a fan oven and tend to check after about 1/2 hour)

I was actually aiming for red bread but when I chopped the beetroot in the food processor it didn't liquidise as I expected. And actually, having knobs of lovely ruby red beetroot through the bread is sooo pretty and tasty. My little 'un loved it.

3 comments:

Hmmmmm, I'm not convinced, but may have to try it. A friend's partner makes some sort of curry made with beetroot which is apparently nice (but again I think I'd have to try it first - I'm still sure that beetroot is supposed to be either pickled, or grated finely in salads ;0)

Originally, the idea was to puree the beetroot so it would colour the bread red, but I didn't process it for long enough and impatient me decided to see what bread would be like with chunks of beetroot through it, and I rather liked it.. especially with cheese and gerkin :-)